US beats Italy in second week of the 2012 FIVB World League – Volleyball news
US Volleyball team sent Italy to its first loss in the 2012 FIVB World League on Friday.
Following an extremely close competition, USA settled for straight-sets victory (30-28, 28-26, and 25-22).
It was the opening match in the second leg of the tournament, which took place in French city Lyon.
The top-scorer’s spot was shared by two players, who were in different teams. Matthew Anderson of USA and Giulio Sabbi of Italy added 17 points, apiece. However, Anderson made 40 attack attempts whereas Sabbi achieved the mark in 53 attempts.
Italy had defeated USA in the first week of the tournament. Hence, the Italians used the competitive edge and tried to put pressure on the competitors. They added consecutive points and moved to 8-4 lead at the first technical timeout. On the other hand,
US team came from different angles and tried to catch up.
Italy did not stop the hard hitting and rallied to 13-6. The ball frequently landed on American side and gap of points stretched out. Apparently, it became difficult for US team to fight the challenge but a six-point rally at 20-13 majorly helped Americans
to return in the game. Thereafter, US team took over and seized first-set win at 30-28.
Opening set ended quite dramatically as Italy led the scores for better time but still could not manage to achieve the desired results. With one set in hand, US team caught a good start in the next stanza. Meanwhile, the raged-up Italians threw everything
in attack and rallied hard to cover the deficit. They managed to create the tie of scores at 16-16 and 23-23 but failed to stop the charged-up Americans. Second set also slipped from their hands with similar two-point deficit at 26-28.
Third set was again hotly contested, where both teams jumped on every little opportunity to score points and regularly traded lead. Nonetheless, US team sent 25-22 on board in third set and settled for 3-0 victory.
Italian team dropped the decision but still the head coach Paulo Montagnani praised great effort of his players. He said, “I think we play a very good match. It’s the first official match for this team after a 4 weeks preparation and we didn’t know what
expected for us. We play a very good match. In many moments we were in front of USA, playing better but we didn’t succeed to put the ball on the floor.”
His American counterpart, John Speraw commented, “The future of Italian volley-ball will be good. Early in the first se we had some trouble but so far we stay focused. Our objective is to continue to improve, we need to play.”
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